Oliver Reid, aka The Cricket Observer, gives you insight into the world cricket scene. Also on this site you can sample his published articles, browse his archive and post comments of your own.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

India looking to Australia

The fiercest of rivals on the pitch in all formats of game, has seen India and Australia play some classic matches. Yet it seems an Indian consortium is looking to move in on the possible franchise structure of a new 20Twenty competition. A creation of the Australian version of the franchise IPL would be bigger than Kerry Packers World Series Cricket, CA board members will meet in Melbourne in the next two days to decide whether to accept private equity from India , and other overseas investors, as part of the ownership structure for franchises, potentially valued at $80 million each.

On further research by the Cricket Observer it seems that NSW Cricket has set up a separate business name of Blues.inc to run its 20Twenty franchise, there is talk that the 20twenty Franchises have the ability to have a net worth of $80 million, more than any of the top football codes. An Australian tournament would involve eight teams - two from Sydney and Melbourne, and one from each of the other states. It will feature all Australia 's stars and retired champions, including Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. Overseas stars from India , England , the West Indies and South Africa will be offered mega contracts to play in a tournament that will replace traditional one-day cricket in January and February.

This space is worth watching with the Big Bash is on the agenda for this board meeting and it seems that Australia is again at the forefront of big change in cricket. With Test matches only mattering it seems to purists and those series involving Eng/Aus or Aus/India we could see the disappearance of one-day cricket all together as T20 starts to grip the world, but as it previous posts here on the Cricket Observer we must trend carefully and think this type of out and develop leagues and not a foreign legion of hired guns travelling the world for the biggest cash bonus.